Meet Barbara Lane, The Chronicle’s new book columnist

Editor’s note: In this new column, writer and producer Barbara Lane will explore our rich Northern California publishing scene, with its authors, personalities, controversies and more — all viewed through her lifelong love of books. You can write to Barbara and The Chronicle staff at books@sfchronicle.com.

Last year I sold the house I’d lived in for 25 years and moved to a smaller place. Much smaller. My major concern wasn’t the fact that I went from 2½ bathrooms to one and that curious guests might be inclined to peruse my medicine cabinet, or that having a dinner party for more than four people meant praying for good weather so we could do it on the deck. Rather, it was all about the books.

In my old house, the bookshelves were crammed with the standard vertical volumes in front of which more books were piled horizontally. Stacks of books teetered precariously on the floor. I tried without success to have a grownup coffee table with a few sophisticated art books and some impressive intellectual magazines. And my night table was a joke; any attempt to sort out the three or four books I was actually reading from those I just might dip into when the mood arose was doomed.

So when the time came to get ready for the move, the books were my major concern. What to do? I had Plato’s “Republic” and “The Riverside Shakespeare” from my freshman year in college, the bootleg J.D. Salinger — the only item my ex-husband and I fought over in my divorce — and Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” cheek by jowl with Shirley Hazzard’s “Transit of Venus.”

(A parenthetical note: The astute among you may have noticed that the fact that Achebe and Hazzard were neighbors signifies there was no order to my books. In fact, I abhor order. I once heard that Nancy Reagan had her books done by a decorator when she and Ronnie moved into the Governor’s Mansion. Of all the things I disliked about the Reagans, that was right up there at the top.)

After I determined which precious volumes to keep (more on that later), I decided to have a party and let my friends and family receive the bounty of my collection. As guests entered the house, I handed them a big shopping bag and pointed them toward the stacks.

Women who’d never met bonded over their first memories of Doris Lessing and Marge Piercy. An old friend clutched a dog-eared copy of “A Moveable Feast,” practically in tears as he told me about his first trip to Paris. I overheard a neighbor’s story about how James Baldwin was the writer who first exposed him to the reality of racism. And another about Oriana Fallaci being the inspiration behind a decision to go into journalism. Recently, I brought together some friends I didn’t realize I’d introduced at this giveaway. They recalled being part of a rather heated discussion about Bret Easton Ellis.

Needless to say it was the best party I ever had with the most leftover food. Drinking was easy in my “bookstore,” but balancing a plate damn near impossible. And when it was all over, I looked at the big gaps in my bookshelves and felt happy that all my beloved old volumes had found good homes and called up the San Francisco Public Library to donate the rest.

As The Chronicle launches this new column on the local and wider book scene, I hope I can continue the giveaway in virtual form: sharing the books I love and, I hope, sparking conversation about what and how we read. I’ll discuss what I love about the literary world, often focusing on our rich Northern California scene, personalities, trends, controversies and more.

As for what books I kept post-move, as you might imagine it was strictly emotional.

Favorites among the books I’d read to my son including some Babars (which I’m told are now politically incorrect colonialist nightmares), “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes,” a 1941 edition of “Homer Price,” “My Side of the Mountain.” I couldn’t imagine living without some of the classics to keep me company: Tolstoy and Balzac, James and Faulkner. Conrad and Wharton (Lily Bart!). And then there are my more contemporary “friends”: George Saunders and Elena Ferrante, Denis Johnson and Annie Ernaux, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Patti Smith and Zadie Smith, John Banville and Jesmyn Ward.

I’m still prone to book creep, something I’m fairly confident you share if you’ve read this far, and I’ve decided I’m just going to have to live with it. Whenever the pile under the coffee table (my current solution for keeping the top clear) gets out of control or the tower on my night table topples over, I head to Green Apple and sell back the overflow. But when asked if I want the proceeds in cash or trade, it’s an easy choice. That new Donna Leon has my name on it.

Barbara Lane

Barbara Lane
Barbara Lane can’t remember a time when she didn’t have her nose in a book. Books have played a large part in her career in print and broadcast media, as a producer and on-stage host, as current director of events at Copperfield’s Books, and as a literacy tutor. She’s the unofficial book whisperer to an ever-growing group of fellow book lovers who seek her recommendations for everything from holiday reading to suggestions for convalescing moms and book-adverse nephews. Write to Barbara and the Chronicle staff at books@sfchronicle.com